COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

tion and configuration, 480; its
triple construction, 481, 482.
M-.'gusthenes, ;VJO; his descriptive ac-
curacy, 5:21; embassies, 535 .
Meleaser, of Gadura, his Idyl, 'on
Spring,' 379.
Menander, the rhetorician, his severe
criticism on tho poems of Empedocles,
382, 383.
Messina, Antonio di, transplanted the
predilection for landscape painting to
Venice, -145.
Microscope, its discovery and scientific
results, 166, 167, 699^700.
Migration, direction of its early impulses,
554, 571.
Miletus, 513.
Milton, character of the descriptions of
nature in his '
Paradise Lost,' 430.
Minnesingers, love of nature as expressed
in their poetry, 398400.
Minucius, Felix, early Christian writer
on nature, 392, 393.
Missals, landscape illustrations in, 444.
Mohammed, 576, 579.
Mohammed Ben-Musa, his compendium
of Algebra, 596.
Mongolians, battle at Leignitz, 571,
624; Buddhism, 572.
Monsoons, known to the companions
of Alexander, 538. 539.
Monsoon, Indian, causes of, 485.
Mosaics, Byzantine, 444.
Mtiller, Johannes. See Regiomonta-
T1US.
Miiller, Otfried, on the characteristics
of the landscape paintings of the an-
cients, 443 ; on the myth of the destruction
of Lyktonia, 482 ; on na-
tional myths blended with history
and geography, 483; date of the
Doric immigration into the Peloponnesus,
486.
Museum of Alexandria, 542, 543.
Naddod, his discovery of Iceland, 603
604.
Nature, incitements to the study of,
370 ; inducements, three different
kinds, 38, 370 r 371 ; i. Poetical de-
scriptions of nature, 372 439; ii.
Landscape painting, 440 457, 459 ;
iii. Cultivation of tropical plants,
458 465 ; powerful effect in aiier
years of striking impressions \n
YOL. II. 3
11
childhood, 371; an increased impulse
lent to the study of nature, by the
discovery of America, 420, 421 ;
modern descriptive and landscape
poetry, 437, 438.
Nautical astronomy, 630 638, 669
680.
Nearchus, 520, 538.
Neku, commenced the canal of the
Red Sea, 539.
Neophytos, numeral characters of, 598.
Nestorians, their intercourse with the
Arabs and Persians, and its results,
578,579.
Newton, Sir Isaac, his invention of
the mirror sextant, 671 ; discovery
of the law of gravitation, 695, 698,
714, 735, 736; experiments
on the
velocity of light, 716, 717; early
electrical experiment, 727.
Niebelungen, absence of anv description
of natural scenery in, 399.
Nominalists, school of,
Ages,
in the Middle
617.
Nonnus, his Dionysiaca, 378, 379.
Norman, Robert,
his invention of the
dipping needle, 658, 718.
North, nations of. their love of nature
397.
Northmen, dates erf their discovery and
colonization of America, Greenland,
and Iceland, 603 605.
Numerals, Indian, 535; spread of,
597 599; early methods of expressing
the multiplier of the fundamental
groups, 597, 598; 'Suanpan,'
'
'
Method of Eutocius,' Gobar, 1
Arabian
'dust writing,' characters
Neophytos, 597 599.
of
Oceanic discoveries, 601 680.
Omar, Caliph, his religious toleration,
573.
Onesicritus, on the Indian fig-tree,
521; on the Indian races, 530.
Ophir, conjecture on its localitv, 499
501; its exports, 500.
Optical instruments, dates of their dis
covery, 699 701; optical experiments
of Claudius Ptolemseus, 550
551, 561, 562.
Osiander Andreas, his preface to the
writings of Copernicus, C86, 687.
Ossian, and the Celtc-Irish poems, 402
Ovid, his vivid pictures of nature, 386.